Last Breath
by Thru Terry's Eyes
Summary: I guess it's a tag for a scene in AHBL2. You've been warned, it's a tag for the beginning.Blessings on Gaelic who was brave enough to guinea pig this for me.


**Last Breath**

**Summary:** I guess it's a tag for a scene in AHBL2, you've been warned.

**AN:** Yeah, it's me. In the effort to root out some demons of my own I am compelled to present you with this. It is for a scene in AHBL2, so it is spoilerish if you haven't seen it. Although I can't imagine anyone alive that doesn't know what happened no matter how cloistered you try to keep yourself. (That's a helluva word, how many times in life do you get to use a word like that?)

It's not very long. Figures, I fall off the earth into the VS zone for months and then the only original non-VS piece I can come up with is this. I'm not sure if I hope you enjoy it is actually what I should be saying.

* * *

"Don't you think it's time we bury Sam?" Bobby would have preferred tearing his tongue out to saying those words to Dean. Those words to Dean about _Sam. _But they had to be said. They couldn't just leave Sam lying there on the bed. Emotion aside, there were other issues to consider.

Dean's response was instantaneous. His empty eyes fixed Bobby with cold glare. "No."

Inside him, the words "_bury Sam" _had flooded his body with useless adrenaline and clenched his heart. Burial was final. Forever. That made it real.

The knowledge that if he had only been there five minutes sooner the blade that had ripped Sam away might have been buried in him instead was almost enough to kill him right there.

He would have taken it willingly. Would have happily been found dead with his hands dug into that murdering Jake's throat. The life choked out of the bastard, cold and stiff in Dean's death grip.

Anything that would have kept him from having to stare numbly at the still form of his brother lying on the bed in the other room. A sight that drew him morbidly like a magnet and once there, was more than he could bear to see.

When Bobby had returned from his useless chase, Dean had long since stopped rocking Sam's limp body and simply held him, still kneeling on the muddy ground, hands smeared with blood. He had refused Bobby's offer of assistance in getting Sam back to the car, unwilling to let go, unable to stand the thought of even Bobby touching him.

He had carried Sam out of the fire and into this life by himself. He would fucking well carry him out by himself.

Sam lanky form, usually a too-long tangle of arms and legs, hard enough to support when Sam was somewhat in command of it, suddenly weighed nothing and Dean clutched it to himself as he moved toward the car. The car that had been their home, Sam's home, was now to be his hearse.

Sitting in the back with his arms holding Sam tightly, thinking he could keep him warm if he just held on tight enough, long enough… Warm tears splashed onto Sam's closed eyes, allowed to fall because it didn't matter anymore.

"No!" Dean had growled when he faltered entering the doorway of the cabin Bobby had taken them to and Bobby had reached out to take some of Sam's weight. "I've got him. I've got him."

He had lowered Sam to the small bed and carefully straightened his rumpled clothes, smoothing them, brushing that friggin' long hair out of his eyes, placing Sam's hands in a comfortable position over his chest.

Bobby, watching stricken from the doorway, stepped aside as Dean slipped past him, only to return a few moments later with a cloth and a small pan of warm water. Dean crossed back to the bed and kneeling, began to gently wash the blood and dirt from Sam's face and hands.

"Dean…" he said softly.

"I've got him." Dean said hoarsely. "I've got you…"

Bobby left the room and didn't come back until late the next day.

_

* * *

_

"No." Dean had said to Bobby.

_Bury Sam?_ Drop him into the cold wet earth? Leave him in the dark? Alone? Shovel dirt onto the baby he had carried out of a burning house? The child he had raised? The boy he had grown up with, played with, fought with? The man he had dragged from yet another fire, back into a life he didn't want? The brother he had fought to protect, sacrificed everything for, had been willing to die for? That thing he had loved most in his fucked up, so called life?

_Burn him? _Salt him like one of the creatures they had hunted their whole lives and toss the match that would turn Sam's laughter and tears and memories into so much ash to be scattered in the wind?

_No. Hell no._

He had sat with Sam, hands folded carefully in his lap, explaining himself, their life, reasonably and quietly until he got to the part when he screwed up as usual and it all went to hell. And Sam lay there, cold and unmoving because of it.

Their dad had given himself to hell so that Dean could have one more chance to save Sam. Dean had failed again and Dad was gone for nothing. Mom was gone, Jess. And now Sam was gone. And the last twenty-four years of their lives had been burned away for nothing.

Tears spilled down his face as he recounted his past failings to Sam's silent form. Asking what he was supposed to do.

Begging for an answer, from himself, from Sam, from anyone that might be listening… screaming for someone to tell him what to do, kicking his chair across the room in fury.

_"What am I s'posed to do!!???" _

And the answer came...

**

* * *

**Enough angst for ya? God….. And I'm actually in a really good mood. 


End file.
